I recently became certified as a clinical hypnotherapist, and am very excited about the wide variety of problems that can be healed through the use of hypnotherapy. I have been practicing hypnotherapy for 20 years as a Past Life Regressionist, and know how effective hypnotherapy can be for helping people to recall past lifetimes that are interfering with their present life relationships and goals, or accessing past life talents that enhance present life relationships, goals, and spiritual development. Clinical Hypnotherapy is not limited to Past Life Regression. My purpose in writing this article is to make you aware of the wide variety of issues that hypnotherapy can effectively heal.

Hypnotherapy is done through deep relaxation and guided imagery techniques that by-pass the critical/analytical factor of the mind, and enable people to access memories and experiences stored in their subconscious. These are used to accelerate the healing process. Hypnotherapy can be used to effectively address and resolve all kinds of issues that interfere with our ability to lead fulfilling lives.

The Mind – Body Connection: I have an extensive background in holistic health and am a medical as well as regular astrologer. I am impressed with the ability of hypnotherapy to quickly reveal the mental and emotional reasons behind serious health problems. For example, a woman came to me with cancer in the left breast. Her astrological chart, recent past lives and childhood all indicated that she tended to take on much too much responsibility and neglect her own needs. She had not yet processed her anger from difficult childhood experiences, which was also contributing to the problem. In only one session she was able to understand the reason for the cancer, develop some of her own self healing techniques and come up with a simple program for getting her needs met.

Co-Dependence: The big “C” word: Co-dependent people get strong messages in childhood that it is not okay to be themselves. Often the parents are unconsciously using the child to fulfill their own dream, rather than seeing the child as a separate entity. The child is often given messages that they are “selfish” if they seek to fulfill their own needs, so co-dependent people learn not to have any needs. The child is frequently shamed for having and expressing their own feelings, so co-dependent people learn to deny what they feel. Unless healing takes place, the early childhood trauma can lead to stress- related medical illness, anxiety, depression, constriction of emotions, and enmeshment in relationships with addictive, or other co-dependent individuals.

Addictions: addictive behavior can range from things like drug, cigarette, and alcohol abuse, to workaholic, and sexaholic behaviors, and eating disorders like bulemia and anorexia. Usually people with addictions have strong control issues. These may come from an overly-controlling or domineering parent who engulfed the child. Often the child was shamed through harsh criticism or sexual abuse. Sometimes there was a very perfectionistic parent who gave the child the message that nothing they did was good enough. Thus, self esteem would keep going down, because they were always told that what they did was wrong. Love was probably conditional in the family. The binging in any form of addiction leads to guilt and lowers self esteem due to feelings of being out of control. People who have been sexually abused as children may unconsciously hold on to fat as a form of protection. Thus even when they undereat, they don’t lose weight.

I have done a lot of work with people’s critical and perfectionistic parts. Usually one session is enough to give the person tools to begin to heal this problematic tendency to be much too hard on themselves.

Sexual Abuse: People who have experienced sexual abuse or emotional incest often carry strong feelings of shame, anger, fear, pain, hurt, guilt and body memories. They usually need help in releasing these feelings and establishing healthy boundaries. They need to give back responsibility for the abuse to the abuser and assert their innocence. They often need help in grieving over losses and in reclaiming what has been lost — their normal sexuality. They need assistance in creating an internally balanced Child, Adult, Parent. For them, forgiveness is not an event, but an ongoing process.

Hypnotherapy can make it easier for abuse victims to access and release their anger and shame, and to release tendencies to blame themselves for what happened. It can help people to lovingly embrace and accept their sexuality, and help them to find their own definition of “normal.”

Birth Trauma: We are finding that more and more people have physical and emotional problems related to trauma while in the womb or during birth. Birth problems tend to make the baby feel powerless. For example, freedom vs. closeness issues can be related to feelings of suffocation while in the womb, prolonged labor may cause the person in later years to feel “held back”, induced labor can create lots of rebellion and resistance in later life, forceps delivery can be a factor in migraine headaches.

Hypnotherapy makes it possible to relive the womb experience and the feelings in a way that is safe and allows the necessary healing to take place. People have the opportunity to make different decisions about their lives while in the session.

Multiple Personality Disorder: People with this disorder are unconscious of many of their subpersonalities. As a result, the conscious self often loses time due to periods when they are functioning through subpersonalities that are not consciously acknowledged. This is due to dissociating from early childhood pain. People with this disorder often hear many voices inside of their head. They need help in formulating a strong adult part, and healing trauma that causes them to dissociate from their feelings and from parts of themselves. Hypnotherapy can often help people with this disorder to blend some of their parts and to heal and consciously accept repressed parts like an alcoholic part, or a part that mutilates them.

Past Life Therapy: Past life regression is a very effective tool for healing problems that stem from other lifetimes. This includes relationship situations as well as personality problems like fear, anxiety and discouragement. It can help people to get in touch with strengths that they brought in from other lifetimes and help them to gain a clearer sense of direction about where they are going right now. Often past life regression occurs spontaneously as part of a hypnotherapy session.

All hypno-behavioral therapy models differ in the techniques that they use for healing. Some employ NLP and Timeline techniques. The one I learned focuses on Inner Child healing, and opening the heart. People bring in their “spiritual connection” and guides to assist them in their healing process. This is done in every session, helping people to love and accept themselves on much deeper levels, and to feel their own love more deeply, as well as God’s love for them. The techniques are gentle, loving, and do not interfere with the individual’s own sense of power and control. They are also very, very effective, enabling people to get to the core of trauma rapidly and to release old feelings that are locked in the past.

If you are experiencing on-going emotional problems, I urge you to try hypnotherapy. Because these techniques immediately access the sub-conscious, you can recall memories easily, get to the core of your problems rapidly, and begin to heal. People typically experience greater self esteem, self love and self acceptance, more balance in their approach to their lives, and confidence that they can achieve their dreams and goals.

Nancy Kahn is a clinical hypnotherapist and registered counselor. She has 21 years of experience as a professional astrologer, past life regressionist, lecturer, teacher and workshop leader. She uses the astrological chart to gain deeper insight into the issues her clients are experiencing. Your astrological chart is used to help integrate the information you receive during your hypnotherapy session. For more information or a list of upcoming workshops and classes, call Nancy at 206-992-6091 or e-mail her at Nancykahn9@gmail.com.